Tokimasa - Tokimasa's Life: Before The Call To Arms (1138-1180)

Tokimasa's Life: Before The Call To Arms (1138-1180)

A large chunk of Tokimasa's life falls under only this one chapter mainly because not much is known about Hōjō Tokimasa's early life prior to Minamoto no Yoritomo's arrival in Izu. We do not have any information about his parents and early childhood, mainly because culture was not concentrated in Izu, but rather in Kyoto. We do know that Hōjō Tokimasa was born in 1138 into the influential Hōjō clan in the province of Izu.

In 1155, Hōjō Tokimasa married Hōjō no Maki, who became his official wife. Her maiden name is not known. Even the marriage date is not clear, and is based on the birth of their first child, a daughter, Hōjō Masako in 1156. Hōjō Tokimasa, as the head of the Hōjō clan, chose to stay out of the civil strife engulfing western Japan based on court succession disputes between the Cloistered Emperor Toba, his son Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and Cloistered Emperor Suzaku, as well as a rivalry between the Minamoto clan under Minamoto no Yoshitomo and the Taira clan under Taira no Kiyomori.

These two disturbances, known as the Hōgen Rebellion and Heiji Rebellion, ended in a Taira victory and the rule of the Cloistered Emperors Toba and Go-Shirakawa. Minamoto no Yoshitomo of the Minamoto clan was executed in 1160, all but three of his sons also executed, and his daughters sent to nunneries. Of the three of his sons that were spared, Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Minamoto no Noriyori were sent to monasteries, while his eldest son, Minamoto no Yoritomo, only 13 years old, was exiled to Tokimasa's domain of Izu.

Tokimasa's and Maki's next child, Hōjō Yoshitoki, who became Tokimasa's eldest son and heir, was born in 1163. The two also had another son, Hōjō Tokifusa, and while his date of birth is not known, it is estimated that he was born in 1165. There was also apparently a daughter, probably born in 1169. Yoritomo, at first, was just another political exile of the Taira living in Izu, but as Taira brutality grew, not against not only the Japanese people but also the imperial court and nobles, the court itself grew weary of Taira rule, and particularly of the brutal Taira no Kiyomori.

In 1179, Minamoto no Yoritomo, the Minamoto exile from Kyoto, fell in love with Tokimasa's daughter, Masako. In around 1180, they wed. That same year, Prince Mochihito, a son of Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa and a brother of Cloistered Emperor Takakura and thus an uncle of Emperor Antoku, who was half-Taira and had been placed on the throne by the Taira, believed the Taira had denied him the throne and called on the exiled Minamoto leaders to go to war and oust the Taira. Yoritomo declared war on the Taira, thus gaining his father-in-law, Tokimasa's support and the support of the Hōjō clan. That same year, Masako and Yoritomo had a daughter, Ō-hime, Tokimasa's first grandchild.